Cecily Kipe Heads Up Freshman Mentor Program at San Clemente High

Feb 05, 2004 05:56PM
● Published by Don Kindred

by The Journal

Cecily Kipe has been teaching at

Cecily Kipe has been teaching at

San Clemente High School for 17 years.

Mrs. Cecily Kipe has been a teacher for 27 years, the last 17 of which have been spent at San Clemente High School (SCHS). She teaches science and has been the Science Department Chair for the last eight years. Cecily enjoys teaching Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Anatomy and Physiology as well as Biology. What is remarkable about Mrs. Kipe is that she takes on more responsibility each year while remaining a devoted mother of two and an exemplary teacher of hundreds of students.

Over the last two years, this outstanding educator has been an instrumental force in two major developments at SCHS. First, she was involved in every step of the planning and building of a new state-of-the-art twelve-classroom science wing. Secondly, she has been the mentor and teacher of 125 upperclassmen in the Freshman Mentor Program (FMP). The 125 students work with teachers in ninth grade classes on everything from team-building to study skills, all in an effort to increase the level of success of this group.

If one were to visit with Cecily Kipe’s students, quotes like the following would be heard: “She [Mrs. Kipe] is really friendly and always happy to see you personally,” “She encourages independent responsibility and self-directed research,” “She is always willing to help and is very understanding about work-loads”, “She’s very energetic and is always positive”, “She has a great sense of humor and makes the class fun,” and finally, “She makes up her own words, ‘Kipe Words’ and she even gives them definitions.”

Mrs. Cecily Kipe does wonderful things for us here at San Clemente High School and if you happen to see her around town, give her a thanks and a smile. She is sure to smile back, because that’s the kind of person she is!